On Tuesday, I had a meeting with my surgeon to have my fresh flesh wounds checked out and to get my dreaded stint taken out from behind the teeth on the upper jaw. That thing pretty much prevented me from eating anything that wasn't through a straw. It also made my voice indecipherable, made it difficult to brush my teeth, left a foul taste in my mouth, and made my lower teeth sore.
Much to my surprise, he actually took the four rubberbands (one of them had fallen off) off and said that he'd take the stint out the following week. I had lost sleep over getting this stupid thing taken out and I wasn't about to let him get away with that. I begged him to take it out and after some careful instructions about what I could and couldn't do, he somewhat begrudginly took it out. Ahh....freedom. My mouth felt liberated (again) and now I just had to deal with the canker sores, lips that were still extremely chapped and bleed occasionally, and sores outside the corner of my mouth that were extensions of the original lip wounds. But I still can't believe that all the rubber bands and everything else are gone from my mouth after less than a week! What happened to the six weeks of misery???
We had lunch with Susannah later that afternoon and my taste buds were delighted with pecorino-cheese mashed potatoes and some assorted squash soup. It was very nice to be a part of conversations again and I was feeling very good, though tired after a while outdoors.
On the way home, we stopped at Pier 1 and my mom got me a little table that goes next to my futon. It's got four cushons on the inside that can be used for sitting on and a glass top. It's got kind of a North African look to it, which is pretty sweet. I resisted my mom's desires to get things for my apartment for a whole week, but she eventually won the battle - and then some! She re-arranged the paintings and pictures on my walls and then we even re-arranged the layout of my apartment just enough to make it feel more space-efficient and different. I have to admit that Susannah's very nice apartment layout had significant influence on the new layout. To add to the splendor, I took advantage of a fire-sale in my neighbor's apartment to buy a cedar-chest/table that needs to be shortened a little bit but I still feel was a great buy. Now, if I can just get the stank of cigars and god-knows what else from my sketchy neighbors off of it....
Feeling very good this week, I decided to go back to work two days early and save the two vacation days I'd planned on using. My mom was leaving in the morning, so it would work out well, or so I thought. Unfortunately, I am not sure why, but I could not sleep at night. I didn't go to sleep until about 2:00am and then woke up again at 4:00 and fell asleep sometime around 4:45 after email my manager and letting him know that I wasn't going to be coming in after all. I figure it's better not to push things, especially with my lips still on fire at night and the wounds around my mouth growing by the day.
J. Riley, let's hope that I can get some better sleep tonight!
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